Paradise Found

Synopsis

The Shah of Persia is feeling low. So to lift his spirits he’s off to Vienna with his Eunuch in tow for some new adventures. He promptly falls in love with the Empress of the Empire, much to the dismay of her husband, so a resident of the local brothel - who is a double for the Empress - is substituted for a night of passion. But she’s in love with a Baron, who’s having an affair with the Soap Manufacturer’s Wife....

Our Review:

Michael Coveney - 27 May 2010

I’m with Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream on this one: “I am amazed, and know not what to say.” Paradise Found is a bizarrely dreadful musical about the Shah of Persia trying to kickstart his failing libido on a trip to Vienna at the turn of the last century.

And it’s all the more peculiar because it has been produced to such a notably high level. The entire show has been shipped in, as if from Broadway, glistening with the waltz music of Strauss, orchestrated by Jonathan Tunick, staged by Harold Prince and Susan Stroman (it needed the two of them?) and boasting a London theatrical debut by the extraordinary Mandy Patinkin as a bald eunuch.

The music is finely textured throughout, but is curiously bereft of tunes you might recognise, apart from the good old “Blue Danube”, but even there a sort of self-censoring restraint – not good taste, surely – prevents the expression of rapture...

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Latest User Review

addicted to theatre - 29 June 2010:

It isn't the worst thing I've seen in a while (Pity the Sinner wins that award) but is an extraordinary failure considering the calibre of everybody involved. The second half is worth staying for as it has the odd flash of brilliance which gives some idea of what this show could have been....

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